Category Archives: News

Everyone else is doing it…I guess that means I gotta do it too. ‘Cept…I’mma do it in typical Joe-Fashion, and totally OVER do it. I’m not just gonna pick my top 10 images from the year. I’m gonna go through the year and pick whatever the hell I think represents 2010. Anything memorable; From our zany adventures around the Western United States to our unspeakable acts in other countries. *shhh!*

So hide yo kids, hide yo wife, cause I posted up at least thirty seven thousand pictures up in here.

This weekend was a lot of fun. Back to back trackdays with SBK775 up at RFR where I got in a lot of kickass riding with fast guys and good friends. Sunday ended up being some great racing…especially watching the first timers go out and battle each other. Watching Mike morph from a C-group-panty-waist into a full fledged A-group racer-boi was pretty awesome.

It’s weekends like that that I cherish and don’t forget…This weekend won’t be muddled up and lost in memory as so many of my weekends do given that I’m at the track so much. Toe even got a few shots of me that are now my favorite pics ever!

But Monday… Monday had awesomeness written all over it until I had to go and be the dumbass I sometimes regret being… Toe, Han, Kyle, Rob, and myself decided to go shred the gnar in downtown Sacramento on bicycles. I kinda led them around to a few places where Matt and I like to get jukie wit’ it… but since it was only about 6pm and not the usual midnight runs that Matt and I take, we kept getting kicked out of places… finally, we end up by the Pyramid Building where we haul ass down a steep hill and try and drift at the bottom.

Toe set a pretty impressive mark… so I tried to top it… and I did… with about a 25mph highside onto my scaphoid bone wearing only dirtbike gloves for “protection.”. *sigh*

Over the last few years, there’s been lots of talk about electric motorcycles and the TTXGP and “electric racing” and “way of the future,” et cetera…frankly, I’m not yet impressed.

With price tags being as high as $60,000 to buy one of your own, I simply do not see how this is the way of the future. At least, not yet. Even electric and hybrid cars are still not cost efficient. I’ve seen a few electric bikes up close and personal so far. I’ve chatted it up with a few designers, engineers, and riders of these electric bikes.

Most recently was this yellow thing that is to be raced in this years TTXGP. I’m not even sure what it’s called…but “thing” seems to fit the bill quite nicely.

So, we’re taking 4theriders to another level. We’ve decided to offer up VIDEO as well as photos for 2010. Though, it’s not going to be the typical bike-chasing-bike kinda of video that we’ve all seen done in the past. We are offering up GoPro Hero HD cameras for rental to customers.

Not only are we going to be renting them out, but we’re also going to be providing a video editing service, where customers can unload all of the footage taken from the cameras to us, and we will edit them up into a 3-5 minute long video of the best parts of their riding from the day, edited up to their choice of song/genre or whatever they want. Even an option to surprise them with whatever we feel suits the video best. Customers will be able to keep all the raw footage as well.

I received the first of several cameras a few days ago and have done a little bit of testing with it. I want to make sure to learn all the do’s and don’ts of using this camera before renting em out and getting less than perfect results with it. On Thursday, I took the camera up to Mosquito Ridge Road (my favorite road in all the land) and did some various mounting while shooting on the cameras LOWEST setting (720p, 30FPS) and here are the results!

That was just a quick throw-together from some of the footage I shot on a chill ride. I learned that mounting the camera to your helmet does NOT yeild the best audio results with the waterproof backing. I’ll have to try it with the opened backed one, which is supposedly better with noise at less than 100 mph.

Still more testing to be done before February 8th, but progress is being made!

4theriders has been fortunate enough to receive help from Pashnit.com, a motorcycle website created by a local rider over many years of riding and documenting the best riding roads all over California. Tim Meyhew, the owner, also offers motorcycle tours (which I’ve been fortunate enough to ride on several of them, and they are a BLAST! Even having sportbikes mixed with touring bikes and even cruisers, the comradery is top notch, and the experiences last a lifetime). The Pashnit forum is also a great place to meet like-minded riders from your area and beyond where you can share your experiences or live vicariously through the experiences of others as they travel through California, the US, and the globe!

We’re doing it again! And I’m pretty excited this time. We learned a lot the last go around, so this time should be much more sane for me… I think I really internalized everything and made everything personal at the last one, thus causing me mucho stress.

After hearing nothing but positive feedback, and then slowly emerging from my cave and trying to look at the last trackday more objectively, I came to realize “wow, that WAS actually a great day!”

Therefore, join us on September 2nd, 2009, for another day of open tracked shenanigans and fun!

Well, I got word today that a great friend of mine was involved in an accident while leading a group of bikes through Idaho. Appearantly, she pulled along the right side of a tractor trailor at a 3-way junction and the truck must have not seen her and made a right turn, running Tyler over.

All the pics from this weekend are UP! For those of you AFM’ers that practiced with Z2 on Friday, as an added perk, I’ve thrown Friday pics in with the AFM pics… :)

There’s some stuff that we tried to do a lil different this go around. There’s so many freggin AFM rounds at Infineon that it’s getting to be more and more difficult to be creative… and if you know me at all, you know that I find that irritating and I always try new stuff to keep it fresh.

Well, it’s done. I spent about 16 billion hours over the last week or so completely redoing 4theriders. Why? Uh…I was bored of the way it looked and felt before. For those of you that know me know that I get pretty bored of stuff pretty freggin fast…and that I’m SUPER lazy…combine the 2 and viola! Changes about a year in the making…11 months and 3 weeks of THINKING about doing it, and 1 week of actually getting it done. Hehe.

I’m trying to make the site more interactive…more than just a place for grabbing your awesome trackday and race pics..of course, pics are what this site is all about, so we won’t be losing focus on that. :D I just want MORE. More to offer 2theriders. *giggle*

Still big plans in the future for the site, so stay tuned. I won’t give you an ETA though, cause I just might get an ultra-lazy-streak going on again. Haha!

Wow! Great weekend at AFM! Even though on Sunday I was not only slightly hung over, but I was TOTALLY dehydrated from not having drinken enough water on Saturday. That’ll teach me! Ugh!

It was great pitting with Axial Video. Geoff and Robin are two totally awesome people! I really appreciate everything Axial Video has done to help not just me, but all the other AFM vendors.

Anyhow, Toe, Matt, and Max were all on hand for shooting while my roomie John took the grunt work and sorted all weekend. They all totally kicked serious ass and I can’t even begin to express my gratitude for having such awesome friends. Thanks you guys!

I also wanted to mention Eric Arnold…he took a really bad fall right off the first race start on Sunday morning and was airlifted out. He’s going to heal up, eventually, but having been in a similar situation, I just wanted to send a shout out and wish you the best on a speedy recovery. Hope you don’t hurt too much or for too long, brother!

I’ve posted up some sample shots in the usual place; seppes.com/Motorcycles …some interesting shots this weekend for sure! All the pics ARE up on 4theriders/main.php now too though, in case you’re wondering. :D